1. Miss Harriet (1884) by Guy de Maupassant is a collection of twelve stories and novellas; the opening story – ‘Miss Harriet’ – is a tragic love story. When he is twenty-five, the painter Leon Chenal gets to know the English spinster Harriet, a fanatical propagandist for Protestantism. The two meet often, but when Harriet becomes deeply unhappy on seeing a painting of a pair of lovers, Leon decides to leave. The evening before his departure he has a fling with the maid Céleste, and Harriet, who witnesses this, takes a drastic decision – she throws herself down a well.
2. The American poet Walt Whitman’s reputation had been established in England since the 1870s; in France his work did not really start to be appreciated until the 1880s and 1890s. Whitman’s poems were published in a French translation in the magazines La Vogue and La Revue Indépendante in 1886 and 1887.
Willemien took Vincent’s advice. As early as October 1888 she wrote to Theo: ‘Your Whitman’s doing the rounds, too. I thought it was so wonderfully good that for the moment it has spoiled my taste for lighter poetry altogether, or rather taken it away. Those verses are so solid and broad, nothing can compare, a healthy, powerful, hard-working love of life shines through them, refreshing. I have enjoyed them’ (FR b2275).
3. Walt Whitman’s ‘Prayer of Columbus’ was included in his anthology Leaves of grass (1881). It is a poetic rendition of a prayer that Columbus addresses to God, in which the explorer puts his religious feelings and existential doubts into words. Since Van Gogh quotes the French title of the poem, it is possible that he read Whitman’s poetry in the French translation.
For a possible connection between Whitman’s poetry and Van Gogh’s work see Hope B. Werness, ‘Whitman and Van Gogh: starry nights and other similarities’, Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 2-4 (1985), pp. 35-41.
4. See letter 578, n. 4, for Monticelli’s Vase of flowers [306].
[306]
5. See letter 658, n. 9, for Prévost’s Lady with a dog [2216].
[2216]
6. For Monticelli’s last years see letter 603, n. 3.
7. ‘La Canebière’ is Marseille’s main boulevard, which leads to the old docks.
8. Van Gogh is referring to Jules Monge’s Adolphe Monticelli, 1883 (Paris, Musée d’Orsay), or the similar drawing on the cover of the weekly La Provence Artistique et Pittoresque 1 (21 August 1881), no. 12. Ill. 2235 [2235]. In the accompanying article A. Meyer described Monticelli as follows: ‘I can still see him striding up and down the Avenues, dressed in a baggy black velvet jacket, over immaculate white trousers, dazzling long cuffs showing above his yellow gloves, dispensing good humour all along this fashionable walk of the time.’ (Je le vois encore arpentant les Allées; vêtu d’un grand sac en velours noir, sur un pantalon d’un blanc immaculé, avec de longues manchettes éclatantes qui tranchaient sur ses gants jaunes, étalant sa belle humeur sur cette promenade alors à la mode.) Since Monticelli wears a flat black cap in the portrait, the ‘enormous yellow hat’ must be Van Gogh’s own embellishment, probably because he had one himself; in his previous letter (669) he wrote that he had bought a hat and a black velvet jacket.
[2235]
9. See letter 599, n. 6, for the expression ‘fen de brut’ in Alphonse Daudet’s Tartarin de Tarascon.
10. Van Gogh is probably referring to Frédéric Montenard’s The warship La Corrèze leaving Toulon Roads, which was placed in the Musée National du Luxembourg in 1887 (Brignoles, Musée du pays Brignolais, géré par le Musée d’Orsay). Ill. 1178 [1178].
[1178]
11. Sunflowers in a vase (F 454 / JH 1562 [2704]). See letter 668, n. 2, for the number of flowers.
[2704]
12. Sunflowers in a vase (F 456 / JH 1561 [2703]). See Dorn 1999, pp. 49; Van Tilborgh and Hendriks 2001, p. 22, for the number of flowers.
[2703]
13. For ‘barbotine’ (slip or liquid clay) and the association with Monticelli, see letter 663, n. 7.
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